I think trying to spin this as Rachael doing much better than Alissa at this point is kind of disingenuous. Both are clearly struggling with the jumps. Rachael popped a bunch of hers, including a single axel and a single toe loop. While we've seen rachael hit some triples this year (including here) if she can't land more of them in competition she's in big trouble too. In both the short and long program, she only managed to hit 3 total. Compared to Alissa she has quite low PCS. Despite the fact that you can't compare events, I think that their similar scores would still have been similar if they'd been at the same regionals competition. The only difference is that we have confirmation that Rachael can hit triples around 1 try in 3.

I agree with that assessment. I don't think one is better than the other. By all accounts they are even. Rachael has the edge in the triple count, but Alissa is maintaining higher PCS despite the lack of them. As i noted elsewhere, I'll reserve my judgement about the PCS gap until I actually see the programs.

We'll have another data point on Rachael sooner than later in Nice, which is next weekend. Short program is Saturday, Oct. 26.